Black beavers

I have never heard of anyone catching a black phase beaver in my area. Are they worth any more than other beavers? I'd like to get one to tan.

I've Caught 9 out of Two colonies since 1986
...For me they're rare , I should have had them tanned.
When I sold them the buyers paid the same.

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How many from Wisconsin 330? I've only caught two... sold the first one and hooping this one

Caught 4 out of a cranberry bog in 1980. Got $50/each from a fur buyer.

They are not around here either.Bummer

I catch about one about every year or two. They are beautiful...but pays the same from the fur buyer in my experience.

Yeah, I think I'll start tanning them. Now I'll probably never catch another one.

Sometimes you run into colonies of them. If I find a colony I try to leave em alone in hopes of there becoming more colonies in the vicinity.
I'd like to catch more to get a blanket made.

About 8% of the beaver I sent to NAFA graded as black.

I don't think that would be uncommon for guys in Northern Wisconsin and the UP.

Caught 6 a few years back a stone's throw from my back door ,never seen any others since .

Its not a color phase that's common here,but they're not rare either.I had a old furbuyer from northern lower Michigan tell me he saw more from the upper peninsula than the northern lower peninsula,and he attributed that to cold darker trout streams up here.By darker I think he was referring to the iron content of the water.I'm not sure he was right but it was as good as any thing I could come up with for the color phase

They can just dye beaver black so I would not think they would be worth more.

I haven't trapped much for beaver the last 10-12 years, but I used to get them regularly when I did. There were ponds/colonies where I expected them to be black. I didn't keep track of the numbers I caught, but was a bunch over the years. I don't believe I ever got a nickle more for a black one than I did a "regular" colored beav. I have the full skin/pelt of a 50 pound black frozen that I planned to do a swimming lifesize mount of, but it always gets put off. Someday.

To the tourist market and the native sewers in Alaska, natural black beaver is much more desirable. There is something about the natural luster that doesn’t happen with dyed pelts.

At the NAFA sales, the blacks almost always brought more money. There were 2 or 3 buyers that were always after them.

I have never caught one in Washington, I have caught hundreds of beaver since 1970.
I have caught a couple of black one in SE Alaska over the past 20 years.

I would be curious to know if Beaverpeeler or Any other guys in Oregon have caught any.

A good percentage of beaver here are Dark/xdk.These beaver have a bit of brown on the cheeks,and occasionally on the rim around the back legs.
A true black beaver is about 1% of the harvest and is totally black.

I have noticed darker fur coming from areas with more acidic soils. And conversely sweet high pH soils tend to have light colored fur.

My catch of totally black beaver always ran about 6%,received the same price as the browns.But the blacks are so much prettier.
Tom

I get the occassional black beaver, I think I've got 3-4 this year. Generally at auction they run about double similar size XDK's.

But have you ever caught a truly black beaver in Oregon. I have noticed over the years that in western Washington the color of beaver fur is a lot more consistent than in most other sections of beaver. Again, never caught a black one in Washington.

Came across this older thread and wanted to comment. I remember reading in a fur history book that they mostly came from around Lake Superior area. When I lived there I regularly had 10% black beavers, all out of the same drainage, which runs into L Superior

yes there are a few every year from up there

5 of 9 were from Wisconsin

Caught (1) black Mink ….but never a black beaver …yet. And spotted a black Chipmunk in the driveway

I trapped the area in NW Wisconsin that 3 Fingers mentioned for 30 years and blacks were fairly common there. They are the product of recessive genes that both parents must possess for the black color to be expressed. I certainly caught a hundred and likely many more than that. My wife has a coat made from 8 matched xls that had never been scarred up and after a friend's wife saw my wife's coat she had me select 8 matched pelts to have a coat made for her also. Both coats are still superb. Had the pelts tanned by National Superior in Chicago(since burned and closed) and the coats made by a furrier in Ironwood MI(since deceased).

To understand how black beaver show up from time to time, it is possible for two brown parents to have a black baby if both carry the recessive gene for that color. Lets say that B is brown and b is black and that both parents carry a pair of genes for coat color such as Bb(in actuality it is more complicated but similar to this). Both parents will be brown because the B color brown is dominant over the b color black. When the two Bb parents mate they will on average produce one baby that is BB, two that are Bb and all three will be brown, and one baby that is bb and black. That is how folks catch a single one from time to time, the recessive gene is in that population and by chance two parents who each carry the gene happen to mate. If either parent had been BB, none of their offspring could ever show the bb color, In the extreme NW part of Wisconsin along Lake Superior, there were enough beaver that carried the recessive gene that from time to time two black parents both of whom MUST carry bb genes for the black color to be exhibited mate and then ALL offspring will be only bb and black. I twice trapped colonies with two adults and six each yearlings and young of the year that were all black.

Very interesting cohunt-All the black beaver I’ve caught have a dull coat not shiny like eagleyes picture.

There are actually many factors(including much more complicated genetics than my illustration above) involved in the color and quality of beaver coats and that is why we can see great variation in brown beaver coat colors. My favorite beaver color was a chocolate brown beaver with nearly a red head that I caught only in the upper Bayfield peninsula. Greg Wade at Danbury was a great market for those beaver. The "shine" or lustre on a beaver's coat is likely the result of both the genetics that determine the color and the environmental/diet factors that the beaver had experienced. Individual issues such as health would also have substantial effect on how a beaver coat appears to us. Just as in humans, it is very likely that severe disease or malnutrition will result in hair that is sub optimal.

When I selected the beaver for the two black beaver coats that I had made I sorted through the beaver caught by myself as well as those caught by Buck Follis and Dave Watson for several years to find 8 that had the coat color and quality that I was looking for. I have no records but suspect that the 8 selected pelts each came from more than 1500 pelts examined, perhaps even twice that many.

I understand what you're talking about with individual beavers expressing recessive genes. However there are also sub-species of beaver that are known to be extra dark or almost black. The Oregon beaver transplanting program of the 30's and 40's made an extra effort to live-trap for transplant a tidewater species off the Columbia river. Castor canadensis ss idoneus is slightly smaller, has a shiny luster to its fur and is extra dark. Our game commission recognized the sub-species to be of higher fur value and made the extra effort to transplant them to some of the northern coastal rivers in Oregon.

And to answer your question Waggler. Nope, over 7000 Oregon beaver to my credit and nary a black one. I hope to someday trap an idoneus on the Oregon coast (very rare as I understand it) but never seem to get that far from the home base.

Took one in the U.P.
It was called a Chippawa Black by the locals

Typical J B frontier beaver- dark in colour but not true blacks-get the odd true black like elsewhere they are more rare.
We get a type of beaver here that shows up once in a blue moon that has jet black underfur and bright red very dense full coverage guard hair.Looks same colour as a cherry red fox until you brush your hand over it and see the black underfur.

I thought some of you could be curious about the Eurasian species... Black beaver are pretty common all over European Russia and Siberia, because almost the whole population (with the exception of two very localized endangered subspecies) originates from the same limited stock, bred on a nature reserve/"farm" near Voronezh and used in a large-scale reintroduction program. About 10-20% of all beavers here are melanists. Quite a few trappers here mistakenly think that black beavers are "Canadian beavers" (in reality there's only a small introduced population of the North American beaver near Finland).

Yes,thanks for posting that Tatiana.
Were those beaver taken in late spring/early summer?

No, I caught those two in late October. The black one is a juvenile, about 9.5 kg. I noticed that in many photos, our beaver seem to have shorter, less glossy guard hair than Castor canadensis, but I've only handled Russian beaver fur so I cannot really compare

Black beavers are looking sharp.

Tatiana,do you know if the North American beaver near Finland crossbreed where their range overlaps with the European/Russian Beaver?

Tatiana, Is that tail shape common. To me it looks long and narrow compared to what is on the beaver I catch. I caught a few black beaver here in ND. I also get some pales.

As far as I know, they do not produce viable offspring because of the significant genetic difference and the different number of chromosomes (2n=48 for Castor fiber and 2n=40 for C. canadensis). I don't know if they ever form mixed pairs, though... North American beavers are considered an invasive species and tend to displace Eurasian beavers from shared habitats. Some say it's because they start breeding earlier and have bigger litters, but I've also read some relatively recent research that says that the Eurasian beaver seems to be more monogamous within a colony, and less likely to pair with a new mate when one of the adults in the breeding pair dies (meaning a higher percentage of "widower" territories, further lowering reproduction rates).


Yes, pretty typical for younger beaver. Large adults have wider tails, but still much narrower than what I see in pictures of North American beaver. Here are a few from my freezer:

I have caught one or two in many years. Do not see many in this area.

Tatiana, we thoroughly enjoy your posts and pictures. Thanks! What do you do with the castors and oil sacs form your beaver?

out of roughly 100 beavers caught ONE was black. I got it tanned then hooped.I could take you to the very spot I caught it too. Its about ankle deep now, when I caught it, It was spring time and about 5-6 ft deep!

Thank you. I don't really have much to contribute here...

I sell castors, whole or as tincture, which is a popular remedy for many things here. I use the leftovers from infusion to catch more beaver. I keep the oil from the sacs in my "perfumery" cabinet.

What kind of remedy's is the tincture used for? Are other things added?

No, it's just vodka and dried castors.

It has proven anti-inflammatory properties and is used to treat a wide range of conditions, from headaches and arthritis to prostatitis . It is probably effective because castoreum is how beavers excrete a lot of chemicals they get from tree bark, including quite a few potent biologically active substances, such as salicylates. Lots of people have been taking it for covid prevention and treatment, which probably also makes sense because some of those plant substances and their metabolytes may have antiviral properties.

It is best known and most popular as as a libido enhancer, though, and is overall a cheaper alternative of deer musk.

When money was scarce in our household my Colombian wife made her own home-made perfume with some of my castor tincture and cooked vanilla pods. She also gave some to her female friends and relatives and claims many men's scalps now hang on their teepee walls...(metaphorically).

I wonder if anybody has done any composition studies of beaver castor?

Caught black beaver out of a cranberry bog, only place I ever caught them.

~

I have caught several of them and it seems that once the genes are in an area they keep popping up again and again. And yes they are worth more money that regular beavers-pretty well top the sale each sale from what I have seen. The pure blacks bring more than the grey/slate color blacks though. Dyed black beavers are much darker but still have a beautiful shine to them but again they are not in as much demand as the natural blacks.

one of my old clients took some and played around with his time with a GC and was surprised with the results, unfortunately he took the data to the grave with him.


That is true once in the area....keeps popping up.
Caught 2 blacks that went both Top Lot unfortunately it was a year after the $ 950 beaver

I have not trapped a lot of beaver the past few years but still manage to get one or two black ones every year close to home. This is one I got last year that was really black with shiny hair. It was a late spring two year old, I think.

trapperman222- A special way with words...

cohunt- Thanks for sharing and I know you know what you described is the classic example of a simple recessive trait showing up. In humans, its the classic for light colored eyes vs dark eyes. Blue and green (true "green", hazel is a bit different) are the same recessive gene matching but the difference in the color is another chromosome on a different allele. Here's a 3 generation example:

My paternal German-American grandparents were a light eyed (I think green) man and brown eyed woman. They had 10 kids, I can't remember all there eye colors but most were brown and a couple light eyed, but all the brown eyed kids were heterogeneous for brown. My dad's eyes were brown before glaucoma took his vision at age 10. He marries a blue eyed Yankee woman and both my brother and me are blue eyed (we both had 50% chance of getting light eyed). I marry a green-eyed Norwegian and both my kids are light eyed; 1 blue, 1 green. If there would have been a brown eyed kid, I would have gotten looking for the dad

Here's another but critter based. We don't have gray or pine squirrels here, only red fox squirrels and when I was growing up in Soo Foo and lived their much of my early adult life, I never saw a black squirrel. Now, Soo Foo has a growing population of black squirrels, especially in the southeast quadrant of the city. I suspect that someone brought in black phase fox squirrels from some place else and those recessive genes are now out in the general squirrel population in the city. Given that I never saw a black squirrel living there on and off for 45 years, I think the "new gene infusion" is on the right track of explaining the change. I've never seen a black fox squirrel in southeast SD countryside and I used to hunt a good amount of squirrel out of shelter belts. It will be interesting to see if the black color gets out into the surrounding countryside.

Non PCfed: I have not seen the black fox squirrels in SF but did see several at the US Fish and Wildlife river boat museum site north of Omaha a decade or so ago. As trees were spread across the prairies following the westward settler movement, many critter dispersals followed. Perhaps the black phase fox squirrels are an example. We now have pileated woodpeckers in NE South Dakota and gray squirrels feed west up the Yellowback River periodically along with timber wolves and black bear. The red and yellow shafted flickers that once were considered distinct species are now intermixed breeding populations and there are likely many more examples. As man altered the available habitats with trees and the food supplies with his cereal grains, raccoons and opossums greatly extended their ranges northward and no doubt there are dozens of other examples. Each of these range extensions likely resulted in the opportunity for expression of recessive genetics as small explorer populations were the spark for development of new populations.

Thanks cohunt!

My oldest kid and I watched the original Jurassic Park again the other night and Jeff Goldblum's character has that line that goes something like, "Life will find a way". We could easily alter that and say 'Critters will find a way". They don't hang around listening to debates in DC or even read peer reviewed journal papers, they just do their critter life following whatever opening they get. For the generalists, they can fit through and into all kind of "openings".

I'm pretty sure we've had the thread of raccoons and possums expanding into the Dakotas before a few years back. I know you gave some interesting examples. I have given these two before but I think its interesting to say them again. My dad's eldest brother was born in 1915 not too far from the James River in Hutchinson County, SD so southeast part of the state. He used to tell the story of how he caught his first coon in the early 1930s. They had to find a "picture book" to confirm it was a raccoon. Melvin Fluth of old M&M Furs Bridgewater, SD told me a story in the late 1980s of how when he was a kid in the early 1940s, he caught a coon and it was the talk of the town for several days.Most younger people, if they had any interest at all in the subject, would probably stand mouth open trying to understand that raccoons were that uncommon in southeast SD 80-90 years ago. Many just wouldn't believe it.

Has the "grinner line" broke into North Dakota? I remember shooting one south of Brookings in the late 1980s and that was about far north I had heard of them. I think all of SD east of the Missouri Coteau now has possums. I've trapped some in January down here with 8 inches of snow on the ground, usually big boars. They seem to have adjust to colder climates.

Just got this guy back today from Moyles- plan to get him hooped and in my Grandson's room.

That should make a beautiful hoop eagle. What size of a beaver is it?

He was 56" so I would say "Large"

Nice clarity.